Blog post: China #2

What was the most challenging aspect of the summative lab?

The most challenging aspect of this summarize lab was definitely time management. I decided to take a risk and cook rice as my side dish, instead of choosing garnishes. The preparation was a handful because not only did the egg rolls have to be fried, but I also had to prepare the rice. As I was making my dish, I realized that I was short on time. I had to improvise and work as quickly as possible to present a visually pleasing and tasty plate. Thankfully, my group and I got everything done in the end.

This is our first experience with plating, what would you do differently during the next opportunity?

Since I ran out of time in the end, I couldn’t cut the egg rolls in half. I feel like I could have made my plate look better if I had just a couple minutes remaining. However, I was still proud with the outcome because it looked well executed. In the future, I will make sure to make time for plating so that I can use my creativity at its most potential. In addition, I would like to use garnishes and sauces.

What are your overall thoughts of our first unit? What did you like about this unit? What would you change?

My overall thoughts on this unit are mostly positive because I loved all the dishes that we prepared. Every dish had a tasty flavor and came out delicious. In my opinion, Chinese food is one of my favorite foods to order at restaurants. It was interesting to learn how the sauces were made. After this unit, I realized that the main ingredients in Chinese cooking are: soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice wine vinegar. The only thing I would change is to have more time on certain recipes. For example, I feel like the general tso’s chicken recipe could have been a two day lab because there was so much to do.